Supercapacitor Rose

3/11/2017 12:00:00 AM

Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Linkoping University, Nov 11, 2015. A research group presented results enabling roses to absorb a conducting polymer solution. With an electrode at each end and a gate in the middle, a fully functional transistor was created. The results were presented in various Science Advances.

A member of the group, Assistant Professor Roger Gabrielsson has developed a material specially designed for this application. The material polymerizes inside the rose without any external trigger. The innate fluid flowing inside the rose contributes to create long conducting threads not only in the stem but also throughout the plant.

Surprisingly, the levels of energy storage achieved are of the same order of magnitude as those in supercapacitors. "We have been able to charge the rose repeatedly, for hundreds of times without any loss on the performance of the device. The plant can, without any form of optimization, potentially power an ion pump and various types of sensors. The research is in a very early stage and what the future will bring still remains an open question”, says Eleni Stavrinidou (Assistant Professor at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics).

The results from the Swedish University are now to be published in the scientific journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS).

The pioneer research into electronic plants has been funded by unrestricted research grants from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden.